If you consider subcultures throughout history, certain terminology such as beatniks, hippies, punks and bikies may come to mind.
However, society’s introduction to the Internet has transformed the youth culture of today, inspiring numerous underground cyber trends that have eventually become commercially embraced; despite the main motivation of these movements ironically being to escape all things capitalist.
Let me introduce you to a few of the Internet’s most interesting spinoffs.
Vaporwave
Coined from the term “vaporware”, Vaporwave emerged in the early 2010’s among Internet communities, becoming defined as a music genre and art movement. Musically its stylistic influences include, chillwave, smooth jazz, new-age and pop. The sub-genre typically relies on clichéd sonic ephemera of the ’80s and ’90s (elevator music, late-night infomercials, “call waiting” soundtracks, etc.), incorporating elements of ‘yuppie culture’ and New Age music as a means to parody hyper-capitalism while simultaneously iconising many of its artifacts.
Vaporwave visual art, simply referred to “aesthetics” consistently honours a few key tenets. These generally include; something pink and teal, a marble classical Renaissance reference and a glitchy Windows 95 logo.
Source: VaporWave Visual Art
Additionally if you’re ever lost in a YouTube vortex and by chance come across an uncomfortably drawn out title than this is most probably a Vaporwave aesthetic.
Music educator Grafton Tanner argues in his 2016 text Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts that "Vaporwave is one artistic style that seeks to rearrange our relationship with electronic media by forcing us to recognize the unfamiliarity of ubiquitous technology." Furthermore Tanner believes, "Vaporwave is the music of 'non-times' and 'non-places because it is sceptical of what consumer culture has done to time and space".
Seapunk
The Seapunk subculture originated on Tumblr in 2011 and is more often than not associated with an aquatic-themed style of fashion, 3D net art iconography and 1990’s pop culture allusions. It’s similar to it’s Vaporwave counterpart and also trended musically spawning its own electronic dance music subgenre, which incorporated elements of Southern hip-hop and 1990s pop and R&B.
The fashion industry was also quick to jump on the Seapunk train with brands such as Proenza and Versace incorporating elements of the subculture into their own designs and campaigns. Globally recognised pop artists such as Rhianna got behind Seapunk at her SNL performance and rapper Azealia Banks released 'Atlantis', a video inspired by the genre.
Source: Azeilia Banks - Atlantis
Health Goth
Health Goth was born when American musicians Jeremy Scott and Mike Grabarek from Portland based band MagicFade began uploading a collection of images they were inspired by to Facebook. Before long, their visual catalogue of monochrome, futuristic style inspiration had acquired over five thousand followers, continuing to expand globally today to an online community of over 30,000.
The original creators list their inspirations as, ‘mesh, moisture-wicking fabrics, prosethics, fashion and performance wear brands, transparent clothing and chains’, with further being derived from sci-fi and cyberpunk.
Major sportswear brands such as Adidas jumped on the Health Goth bandwagon consulting pop musician Rita Ora to design a highly popular pair of skeleton leggings that notoriously fly of shelves faster than they can stock them.
Source: Adidas ‘Health Goth’ skeleton leggings designed by Rita Ora.
At OnQue we are always interested in the ways we are all inspired and subsequently affected by the digital world. Do you know of any other cyber trends we may have missed? Let us know in the comment section below.
*This banner image for this post is by graphic artist, James White @ signalnoise.com